Great story! Those SR-71s were amazing machines in the air. On the ground was a different story. I remember reading about how they leaked all sorts of fluids on the ground because the body was designed to expand at the higher altitudes and speeds. Amazing engineering.
SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower
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Re: SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower
#32Same pilot, different anecdote, "how slow can it go?" http://tailspinstales.blogspot.com/2010/01/slowest-blackbird...
The Blackbird is full of amazing stories. Skunkworks - Ben Rich's memoirs [1] is full of ridiculous stories, both of making the SR-71 as well as stories from pilots (as well as a lot of other projects).
Not every thing in there can be taken at face value (his rant against the paint locker on the Sea Shadow for example... it's really the 'toxic solvents and chemicals locker'), but still full of gold.
For example, they had into all sorts of problems wielding titanium for the first time. Chlorine would wreck all sorts of havoc on the plates they used, which they discovered when someone drew on a plate with a ball-point pen. And then they completely ripped their hair out when the municipality increased the chlorination in the water they were using to clean the plates.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/d...
Re: SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
In fairness, the other part of the killer reputation has to do with apparent design instabilities as a result of the V-tail on the x35 models. Both these and the x36 models really are beautiful planes. Another airplane with the killer epithet because of its on average high power to wisdom of pilot ratio is the Piper Malibu and its later brother the Mirage. Again, a beautiful, fast, well-designed plane that gets out i…
Would you please explain what is meant by "get out in front of you"? I have very limited flying experience and am not familiar with what this means, in pilot terms: i.e. what would you experience as a pilot, and what would be happening to the airplane. Google didn't help in this matter.
If your OODA Loop iteration falls behind the changing conditions, you're in trouble.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop#Application_of_the_OO...)
Re: SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower
#34Thank you again, http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ , for making my web browsing experience safe from the onslaught of backgrounds and fonts.
I was wishing for a site exactly like this when I was reading.
Re: SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower
#35Same pilot, different anecdote, "how slow can it go?" http://tailspinstales.blogspot.com/2010/01/slowest-blackbird...
The story he touches on at the top about the libyan missiles is excellent as well, sadly I can't find a link. Pretty much anything Shul writes is excellent and readable.
The Libya story is here: http://blogs.jobdig.com/wwds/2007/11/19/sr-71-now-that-was-s...
I love that he accidentally overshoots the refueling in Gibraltar -- and ends up next to Sicily.
The more detailed Libya stuff is at the end, though he summarizes it in the beginning.
Re: SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower
#36Submitted 7 months ago on a more readable, seemingly more original site.
http://www.vfp62.com/SR-71.html
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1247709 (good amount of discussion)
Re: SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower
#37Thank you again, http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ , for making my web browsing experience safe from the onslaught of backgrounds and fonts.
I’m using the iReader extension for Chrome. Works like Safari’s integrated Readability.
Re: SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower
#38Thank you again, http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ , for making my web browsing experience safe from the onslaught of backgrounds and fonts.
I knew Readability, but just used "no style view".
Re: SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower
#39In reference to the uniform voice of center controllers--the "Houston Center" voice, Tom Wolfe tells a related story about pilots in "The Right Stuff." He asserts that all of the test pilots of the era copied the slow, calm, and always subtly positive delivery of Chuck Yeager as the pre-eminent pilot of the day. Other pilots in turn copied the test pilots and so Yeager's voice floated down and became the mold for all American aviation radio communication.
I'd guess that the author is correct in that the controllers copied the delivery of the voice of the space program from Houston, but those controllers were usually former test pilots or members of the military flight programs themselves, so we're probably still thinking of the same unflappable voice.
Re: SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
The $2500 one is, if I'm not mistaken, a limited signed special edition (they only printed a couple of hundred copies). The $200 one is the regular edition. (Disclaimer: I own one of the regular ones, and didn't pay $200 for it. But it's a large form factor hardback printed on high quality glossy paper -- full of breathtaking colour images -- so even if they reprint it, don't expect to see copies on sale for less tha…
That sounds a little more reasonable. Hopefully they do a reprint, I am a big fan of those large format coffee table style book, presuming it's about something interesting.
It looks like there is a reprint?
Which takes you here where you can purchase a limited edition for ~$400 USD
http://galleryonepublishing.com/BlackbirdStores/product_info...